BPM - Business Process Management

Introduction to BPM

BPM (Business Process Management) is the approach that consists of using a computer to model a company's business processes that involve applications as well as humans.

The goal of this is to get a better overall view of a company's entire business processes and their interaction in order to be in a position to optimise them and, when possible, automate them as much as possible by using business applications.

A Bottom-Up Approach

BPM has a bottom-up approach that consists of analysing the true operation of the company in order to model it with computers.

This is a departure from the normal top-down plans in which a company's operation must fit into a model laid out by the management team.

Life Cycle of a Business Process

The life cycle of a BPM approach can on the whole be broken down into the following stages:

Study of the company by analysing its goals and organisation in order to be in a position to break down its entire business into a business process
Modeling the business processes, i.e. use a computer to create a model that is as realistic as possible
Implementing the solution: implementing a BPM solution linked to the company's information system (applications and databases)
Execution: the operational phase during which the BPM solution is implemented
Monitoring, which consists in analysing the status of the processes with indicators that show how the processes are performing
Optimisation, i.e. offering solutions to improve the performance of the business processes

Elements of a BPM Solution

A BPM solution is generally made up of the following elements:

A process modeling tool that makes models the company's business processes through the use of a graphic interface
Implementation tools, i.e. interfaces (API) and connectors that help integrate the BPM solution into the information system
A runtime system responsible for instantiating the processes and storing the context and their status in a relational database
Tools for monitoring and reporting based on precise and relevant guidelines, so as to have indicators that make it possible for the correct decisions to be made more quickly. Thus the term BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) refers to the notion of controlling the implementation of a company's process.

Standardisation of the BPM

One of the goals of the BPM is reusability, meaning not having to reinvent the wheel upon each change. Yet, most tools are proprietary meaning that they have their own data model and an opaque mode of operation, which does not facilitate interoperability.

Thus, standardising the representation of the processes is a major issue for facilitating integration between BPM tools. Standardisation takes place at different levels:

At the process modelling level
At the process execution level
At the communicating with the information system level

BPMN

BPMN (Business Process Modelling Notation) is an initiative of the BPMI (Business Process Management Initiative, a business consortium) that aims to define a common graphic notation for modeling business processes.

BPMN notation allows for the business information to be separated from the technical information (technical elements of the information system) in order to maximise its portability from one company to another.

BPMN can be qualified as an UML notation applied to the management of business processes.

BPEL

BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) is a BPMI initiative whose goal is to give an XML representation of the activities linked to executing a process. Whereas the BPMN notation endeavours to statically describe the processes, the BPEL language describes them dynamically.